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Opinion: Golf summit goes great: Bosses Obama and Boehner beat Biden and Kasich

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President Obama’s not big on Oval Office addresses; no audience to play off of.

But he does love his outdoor summits.

Remember the White House beer summit after he called Cambridge police actions stupid after they handcuffed a Harvard professor friend? So POTUS had the cop and the professor and VP Joe Biden out back for a well-photographed beer.

Well, today was supposed to be the Golf Summit with the country’s top two Democrats golfing all-friendly-like with Republican House Speaker John A. Boehner and his Ohio GOP pal, former representative and now Gov. John Kasich.

Republicans and Democrats in D.C. are currently arguing over trillions of dollars in cuts (scroll down for detailed stories) in order for the GOP-controlled House to go along with raising the national debt limit before the de facto Aug. 2 deadline.

They did play golf today. It was reportedly a $2 game (each), decided on the 18th hole and -- who would have guessed? -- the duo of bosses, Obama and Boehner, beat the other two.

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There are ample news pool photos of the collegial gathering that were allowed to be taken at one hole. Back-pats and all that.

But judging from the official White House photo released above, it looks like it could have been the Schmooze Summit (also, there’s at least one beer in there somewhere).

News consumers need to be careful on controlled events like this where the only official photo is, well, official. Like advance speech excerpts, the photos are carefully chosen to create a politically desirable impression. Remember the president lecturing the Dalai Lama photo?

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In this scene, the president and VP know the photos are being snapped and look profoundly entertained by their guest speaker Speaker.

Anyway, this photo of a nonpolitical political moment in time appears to show the bipartisan quartet had a good time on a summer Saturday. No harm in that, even if they’re back at it after Father’s Day.

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